


So, What's the Tea?

by radstarmuffin



Series: Rune Factory Village Romance Week [3]
Category: Rune Factory 3: A Fantasy Harvest Moon
Genre: F/F, Mutual Pining, but i don't think that's quite right, but yeah just to warn for that, i almost want to tag this as prank wars, love potion, so there is some nonconsentual drink-spiking type shenanigans but no worse than in canon, the competitive spirit is strong in this one though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 08:11:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18567385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radstarmuffin/pseuds/radstarmuffin
Summary: Day 3 - Secrets (for #RFVillageRomance week on tumblr)What do you do when you fall for someone who's also fallen for you who's trying to make you fall for them and is getting desperate since nothing seems to work (since you've already fallen for them)? Well, you have to win, of course!Love is complicated like that.





	So, What's the Tea?

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry. I am not meme/slang-literate enough to get away with this title pun. Shame me.

“Marian. What’s the matter -- Stop fidgeting.”

“Eep,” Marian squeaks. Apparently she hadn’t meant to get caught. Not that her restlessness was very well hidden.

_ (Cute.) _

“Um, no, it’s, I mean! Nothing’s wrong, Collette!” Marian’s cheeks are tinged pink and she’s being weird about making eye contact. “How, uh, how’s your tea taste?”

_ (Oh. Is that all?) _

Collette takes another sip to buy time to contemplate her answer. Or maybe if she’s lucky, whatever effect this one’s meant to have will kick in and she’ll be spared the trouble.

See, it’s not that Collette has a death wish. It’s that she has one very specific wish. The subject of which is  _ probably _ going to be the death of her.

...So, yeah, in a roundabout way, it’s kind of a death wish. But, it’s a really good one.

“Hmm. It’s good!” Collette decides, smiling. (It always is, but there  _ is _ something that’s different about it this time.) “It’s pretty sweet--”

“Sweet?!” Marian all but screeches. “No, not, r-- You-y-you really think so? S-sweet, huh, that’s--um--”

“Marian?” 

Said witch freezes, blinking wide eyes at Collette, babbling cut short. 

“Are you feeling alright?”

Collette’s starting to get a little worried now. Marian never gets especially nervous about her new medicines, but right now she’s practically vibrating, and sweat is visibly beading on her forehead.

“Wh-- me?! Yes! I’m--fine, I’m--am--I am tooootally cool--cool as a cucumber!”

“You used something on yourself, didn’t you.”

Collette tries to sound admonishing, but underneath it she’s starting to panic a little. Marian only tests stuff on other people, so she’s left to get them fixed up in the aftermath. Collette barely knows the Heimlich maneuver! If Marian is incapacitated--

“N--Wh--No way, I don’t-- I’ve  _ never _ used  _ anything _ on  _ anyone… _ ” Collette can barely hear Marian’s nervous babbling over her own thoughts. Not that she’s particularly interested on listening to blatant lies.

Maybe she ought to go find Marjorie sooner rather than later.

As Collette makes to stand -- it’s Marjorie’s day off, but she shouldn’t be too hard to track down -- Marian leaps up, too, nearly knocking over a whole shelf’s worth of potions in her haste to stop Collette.

“What-- Ah, shoot, hang on-- lemme just-- What’re you doing, what’s the rush?! Ha ha…”

Marian looks like a madwoman, clutching at the bottles on the shelves while simultaneously trying to block Collette’s path to the front door. Collette gives her the flattest look she can muster while her heart’s pounding picks up steam in her chest. She tries to project enough calm for the both of them, but she isn’t sure it’s working.

“The  _ rush _ , Marian, is that you took something you shouldn’t have, and if you pass out the only thing I’ll be able to do about it is cook the food for your funeral--”

“My what?!”

_ (Aaaand, there goes that calm...) _

Marian grabs Collette by the shoulders. “Why are you talking about my-- Wait, no, listen. I’m fine! I swear. The potion was in  _ your _ tea, so it’s all good; I was just worried about-- Ack! Uh. Oops. Heh heh…”

Collette lets out a big sigh. Hopefully it sounds convincingly exasperated. Mostly, Collette feels relieved.

Any smile from Marian is usually enough to make Collette feel better (even if half the time they’re signalling that bad things are about to happen to her). The apologetic grin she’s getting now, however, isn’t really doing its job. Even if Collette had misread the reason, Marian has still been way too nervous this whole time for it to just be a normal experiment.

“Ha. Ha! What a funny misunderstanding. Sooo, uh, what was that about how sweet it was that I gave you tea?”

“What? Marian. You give me tea all the time?”

“Huh?”

“Wait, you thought I was calling  _ you _ sweet? I meant that it  _ tasted _ sweet. Sweeter than usual.”

“Huh?”

“It smelled like it had honey in it this time. Right? Micah told me he just invited a new monster to live in the barn, and I could have sworn it was a hornet, so I figured...”

Marian avoids meeting Collette’s suspicious gaze and instead glances over to one of the cluttered counters nearby, where they both can clearly see a monster-made container of honey. 

“Oh. Um, actually, yeah, I guess I did put honey in it…” Marian mutters, sort of...dejected? “I forgot I even had that…”

Collette clears her throat. “So. If this potion,” she raises her teacup, “isn’t what caused the drink to taste sweet, what is it supposed to do?”

Marian goes pale.  _ (That’s not a great sign…) _

“It, uhhh… Nothing! It’s not supposed to do anything! That’s why I was surprised you said it was sweet, hahaha!”

“Marian, you already admitted you put something in my tea--”

“Or, actually, I must have forgotten it! Forgotten to put the potion in, I mean, and  _ phew _ , what a relief! That potion was a bad idea anyway; I don’t even know how to make the antidote!” Marian continues, shakey laughter doing nothing to ease the tension in the room.

“Again, you already said you put it in! It’s not like you to try to be coy about it, it’s fine, just tell me what--”

“Nope! I totally must have actually forgotten to add it! That would explain why-- Uh! I mean, nothing, don’t bother asking what that potion -- the one that you didn’t actually drink -- is for. It’s a secret!”

“What do you mean, ‘It’s a secret,’ you can’t  _ not _ tell me--”

“And! It’s so hard to make, I probably screwed it up anyway. So even if I did put it in, which I didn’t, it  _ probably _ still wouldn’t have done anything--”

“Marian. What did you put in my--”

“Oh dear! Would you look at the time! I’m so sorry, Collette, I promised Grandma I’d go forage some materials we’re running out of today!”

“Ohhh, no you don’t!”

Collette does her best to chase after an escaping Marian, in a reversal of their usual chaser/chasee situation.

Unfortunately, Marian has the advantage of being closer to the door. Holding her magic syringe out towards Collette threateningly, she’s able to back away without resistance. 

“Sorry, I’d love to stay and chat, but Grandma’s really counting on me to get these supplies; y’know how it is! Seeya!”

“Wait!” Collette follows her as she turns and runs out the door, but gives up before she’s even outside. Marian’s faster than her, and she’s clearly not going to give her a straight answer anytime soon.

She watches the points of Marian’s hat bob in sync with her pigtails as she runs off down the street, towards the forest.

Leaning against the apothecary’s front door, Collette sighs in defeat. Looks like she’ll just have to wait until she grows a second head to know for sure what that potion does. On the bright side, if Marian isn’t worried about leaving Collette alone, it probably doesn’t do anything life-threatening. 

Hopefully.

That girl really will be the death of her, won’t she?

It’s getting late, if the long shadows decorating the street are anything to go off of. Collette needs to get home before the dinner rush. She has her job as sous chef to think of, after all. And she’s  _ so close _ to completing her training.

It’s gonna kill her to not know what she’s taken -- the absolute worst experiments are the ones where nothing happens (at first). They mess her up worrying about when they’ll strike.  It’s better if something happens right away because then at least she knows Marian is there to look after her. But, there’s nothing she can really do now except wait.

...Maybe she’ll make one stop on her way home, though. Someone should probably tell Marjorie that no one is watching the apothecary shop.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be one of the shorter ones that I could hopefully post all of today but uh,,, yeah. Also i definitely think i was unwittingly influenced by kaguya-sama: love is war for this one and i'm not okay.
> 
> On the bright side I'm still going strong with posting things this week. Woohoo! ~~I'm probably about to fall behind tho lol.~~
> 
> Big thanks for reading!!


End file.
